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Study Partners
By Puppy4lyf

Reviewer: MiniMoxx

Cover/Title: 8/10

. I like the title. The cover is nice, my only recommendation would be to maybe play around with the brightness of the picture to make that font and colour really stand out, it's quite hard to read. But it's nice either way!

Blurb: 9/10

. The blurb is great. Tells us what we need to know, gives us the characters. I'm assuming that they end up falling in love? I would may allude to that at the end, maybe with a kind of: "and they find more than they expected" or something like that to allude to a possible romance? You don't NEED to it's just something that might get across what happens a little more?

First Chapter: 7/10

. The first chapter was good. It introduced us to the characters, the situation.

. However, not a lot happened. There wasn't much world building (will go into this more in the world building section) and there wasn't much characterisation. It felt all very "this happened, dialogue, this happened and then i did this. Dialogue." I think to remedy this, you need some world building, descriptions etc. Describe the room, describe Summer, her friends. It will slow the pace down which i think is also needed in this chapter.

. But the actual plot of the first chapter was good. I think it just needs some work to really get the reader hooked and caring.

Grammar/Punctuation: 5/10

. In chapter one "Mrs Felixs" doesn't have an apostrophe.

. "Sorry isn't going to cut it Barlow..." - after Barlowe there needs to be punctuation to close the dialogue or show it hasn't 'finished', and 'your' needs to be 'you'

. The dialogue as a whole seems to be missing punctuation - whenever you use a dialogue tag (so said, cried, exclaimed) you need to use a comma to close the dialogue. If you're not and you're using action tags or no tag at all, you need to use either a full stop or whatever's appropriate.

. "Giving me a make up" in chapter 2 doesn't quite make sense. 'Doing my makeup' would probably sound better. Or 'Giving me a makeover'

. Not sure why there's an emoji at the end of chapter 2, in prose. I'd get rid of it.

. With a LOT of sentences as I went on, you don't use full stops (or any relevant punctuation) at the end of them. You NEED to use these as it shows the reader that the sentence finishes. You can also utilise things like exclamation points when getting across dialogue or exclamations within narration or dialogue, and it'll also buld up that vocab and bring real depth to the story.

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Vocab: 7/10

. The vocab is very simple, which is fine because mainly you're dealing with teens. It isn't really until you mature that complex words and that kind of thing develops (unless you're a writer obviously lol) so on the whole it's fine.

. But I really would start to find more words, I've kind of gone on about this before and a bit below so I dont want to repeat myself, but especially in dialogue, try to use words to your advantage. I hate people that think this whole "said is dead" thing - people will tell you not to use said all the time, but in actual fact, readers just get used to it and they only REALLY use a dialogue tag to see who is talking. BUT you also then have to balance what your dialogue is trying to do.

. So is she yelling? Instead of "Summer said" try "Summer yelled" or even look some words up in a thesaurus and change that vocab. "Roared" or "screamed" will really show the reader what is going on and will help with a lot of stuff like characterisation, world building. Vocab does so much with one or two word changes.

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Plot/Pacing: 6/10

. As a sort of aside, in chapter 2 "he hardly spoke to any girls, therefore I thought he was gay" (paraphrasing) this isnt great. This kind of almost feels homophobic to me, or at least it forces those stereotypes and it really turns me off. Honestly, if I read that as a reader, I would've put the book down at that. My first thought if a boy doesnt talk to girls is that he's shy, not that he's gay. Unless you are purposefully making a homophobic character (which it doesnt read like that) then I would rework this.

. The pacing of the story seems absolutely fine in terms of story/plot, so well done.

. The pacing of the chapters seems okay, however, I would always suggest slowing it down to add in some description because right now the chapters are very dialogue heavy and relying on things happening when it doesn't need to. We want to know what people look like, some important scenery, what her emotions are like. Basically: show us, don't tell us. It's a well coined phrase in writing, and it basically means: describe. I'll come back to this all in imagery.

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Characters/Character Development: 3/10

. The characters seem to be what I would call "half- developed" - while they don't feel wooden and 1-dimensional, they don't feel real enough to me either. I think it all comes back to this use of descriptive language and emotions. You're just telling us what Summer is doing and there's no depth to her. All I know is that she likes to have fun with friends and hates Huey. It's not really much and I feel nothing for her - apart from I kind of hate her because of that one phrase about thinking he's gay. Not what you want a reader to think of your main character.

. With the above, I think you need to show us more. How does she interact with her mum on a normal day, what does she like? Show us her emotions, show us something makes us like her. It's absolutely real if she has flaws, but I'm not really seeing ANYTHING of her to make me feel anything for her.

. I can see some potential with the chemistry between Huey and Summer; that hatred is there, but I don't see why they hate each other. Like, cool they think the other is nerdy or arrogant. But that wouldnt be a reason to hate each other. I think an 'inciting incident' is needed in this case. Does she bully him? Did she make fun of him for being smart in class? Did she interrupt the class one day and he hates it? To me their hatred doesn't seem warranted. You could always take out the word 'hate' between them as it's a very strong emotion and just have them awkward and not understanding of each other instead? That at the moment would feel more real than pure hatred.

. Characterisation - This is kind of linked with everything above. But I need more of it, that will really bring the characters to life. I can see you start to do this but it falls a little flat and I think again, that goes with vocab and description etc. You can do a LOT with one piece of dialogue. For example:
"I hate you," Summer said. < this feels flat, no emotion attached. I don't really feel her hatred coming off the page.

Versus:

"I hate you!" Summer roared. Her foot slammed on the floor with each word. < this brings that hatred to life. The use of italics shows us she's emphasising the words, the use of roar instead of said is powerful, and the small addition of the action there gets some characterisation in.
^ This is what I'm looking for to bring that character to life.

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Originality: 4/10

. If I'm honest, right now this doesn't feel original. Now, the plot to me is fine. I don't have this fright of tropes or anything like that because author's tend to make tropes their own and THAT for me is what's important.

. My feeling on this story right now is that the character's are not well developed enough to make it original. It just feels lifeless (I'm really sorry!). I think the thing that would bring some life into this and make it original is that chemistry between Huey and Summer. (I know you said this is one of your weaknesses) I've spoken about it above, so I won't repeat myself ;)

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World Building: 2/10

. There isnt much of it. With world building, I'm looking for things like descriptions of the scenery and how Summer sees the world (this brings in that characterisation as well), also her relationships to people around her. World building is often mistaken JUST for places but it's about the main character and their world-bubble.

. This will tie A LOT into characterisation and imagery, so just refer back to those points! If you work on those, it will automatically bring a better and richer world build to your story.

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Imagery: 3/10

. In chapter 2 when you describe Huey; this is the type of thing description is about - showing us. However I think it could use more depth. From the blurb and the assumption (from the tags of the story) he's going to become a love interest. So while the description of Huey is good, think about adding more depth (I'll come on to how to do this in a bit!)

. So not to repeat myself: I've gone over some points about this already, but I found your work needs a lot of description. This is the main point with imagery. So we're looking for what people look like (like what you've done with Huey) but we want more depth. So to do this, we're looking for literary devices. We don't just want "he looked like this, she felt like this" we want you to SHOW us this. To do this you need to utilise things like metaphors, similies, emotions.

. So, is she sad? Okay, so instead of "I cried in sadness" you want to try things like "Summer laid on her double bed, the tears fell like a broken damn down her cheeks. The tissues littered all over the floor" kind of thing < see how instantly more powerful that is than just "she cried" ? It's that kind of thing that will really build on a lot of the above sections I've looked at here.
A trick I use in writing, is to weave in my characters back story to relate to their emotions. In one of my books, her husband dies and she's moving on with another man, so at some of the points, I will in narrative bring up a memory of her dead husband like they talked about getting married, and then bring her back to the past and her new boyfriend is proposing.

. I bring in a lot of the imagery and emotions from her past and relate her emotions to that (not necessarily an imagery thing but to help you with literary devices) - this helps with all that world-building, the emotions, her characterisation, making her feel real and also just to go more in depth with that world. The difficulty is a lot of teens dont think that deeply and I write adults, but it can work a lot with things like heartbreak or even bringing in that hatred thing I brought up earlier.

Overall: You have the premise of a really good and hooking character driven story here, but I think it needs some work. Work on these things and I truly think it'll be AMAZING. Hope this helps!

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